Category: city feature
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Public service announcement: better sherut!
Today I was on the 18, on the way to the bus station in Jerusalem. As the bus pulled up past the Beit Shemesh sherut que, I couldn’t help but daydream of a time, one day, when Jerusalem would have a better sherut system. Sherut literally means service, but I can’t help but feel like…
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City feature: Ashkelon
It’s not hard to imagine immense burnout after a vacation-less summer, so this past weekend we ditched Jerusalem and ventured to Ashkelon. For a lot of people, the coastal city of Ashkelon is not the first place they’d go for a break. But for us, it was a great idea: relaxing, quiet, sunny and plenty…
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City feature: Akko
Akko, Acre, call it what you want. It’s a strange little city in my opinion, a strange little city that’s been through a lot: Canaanite, Phonician, Greek, Roman, Persian, Arab, Turkish, Crusader, Ottoman, British and Israeli rule. It was also the burial place of the founder of the Bahai faith (source). And, of course, here…
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Solution for the wee hours…
Yesh! Jerusalem/Egged is introducing a “solution for the small hours” of the night with late-night bus service across town. It extends pretty far and wide, including Gilo, Ramot, Givaat Ze’ev, Mevasseret and even Maale Adumim. I’m actually impressed with the service as listed in the flier below, which I found on the street; why hadn’t…
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Be your own Jerusalem tour guide.
Who needs birthright Israel? This is actually pretty clever: It seems the Jerusalem Municipality has set up mp3 tour guides that you can download, along with map routes to print out, and then you can give yourself a free tour of Jerusalem. I haven’t tried it yet, but I’d love to hear if it’s good.…
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City feature: Sederot
Volunteering I’m a bit tired of always saying how good it would be to volunteer ’round these parts. Since I’ve been here, my newspaper has delivered the disengagement, Kassams in Sederot, Katyushas and war in the North, and Kassams in Sederot. We went down to Sederot today to volunteer with Lev Echad, which is an…
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City feature: Haifa
Now that summer is upon us, there’s a new series of jokes going around the cynical Israeli circuit, which revolve around the same punchline: “So, what are you doing this summer?” “That depends – when does the war start and end?” “Hey, feeling like a weekend in a tzimmer?” “Maybe; but let’s wait for the…
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City feature: Yafo
This is Yafo or Jaffa, the second half of the area known as Tel Aviv-Yafo. Historically it’s always been a port city and today you can see the ancient ports as well as the modern docks. Its residents are both Arabs and Jews and has a healthy list of places to see and things to…
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City feature: Herzliyah Pituach
Feeling a pitzy homesick. Departing from New York tomorrow evening. Meanwhile, I’ll reminisce over summer 2004, before I made aliyah, when I spent 2 months living in Herziliyah Patuach, a gorgeous coastal city between Tel Aviv and Netanya.
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City feature: Sfat
I’ve never spent an extended period in Sfat, which is likely to be a holier city than Jerusalem and warrants more time-spending. The amount of time I spent there allowed me these shots, however:
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City feature: Tel Aviv
Me and Tel Aviv are like those cousins you have that aren’t blood relatives, but you see each other every Pesach or something. Here are some photos I took of the ‘White City‘ in 2004, on the trip I took before my aliyah jazz. Tel Aviv, like Jerusalem, can be a city of contrasts at…